Last night I experimented with an old list with a new upgrade:

5 x Scimitar Squadron Bombers + Extra Munitions + Flechette Torpedoes + Guidance Chips

In the past the bombers would have trouble getting damage through. They could usually last long enough in a timed match to take wins based on points. The addition of Guidance Chips, does help them a lot, but they are still hampered by not having abilities to re-roll the dice or make modifications.

A swarm of flechettes is great for controlling and helping to take out an Ace in a list. Position them right and you can have 5 bombers all firing Flechette Torpedoes on to a Poe, Guri, Xixor, or other ace. Since flechette causes stress even if it misses, you can easily load up an ace with 3 or more stress tokens. Move a wounded bomber into a blocking roll and you can if things go right taken them out with another round of shooting.

The list though still doesn't do enough damage quick enough to win an untimed match. The match may go 2 hrs... but it will still loose.

So what are the missing pieces? I've been experimenting around with various bomber builds and my recommendation if you want a swarm, is that you'll need to go Gamma Squadron Veterans, or you need to include a Tie Shuttle.

The best Tie shuttle so far is pretty simple:

Scimatar Squadron Bomber + Tie Shuttle + Fleet Officer + Twin Ion Engines = 20 pts.

or

Captain Jonus + Tie Shuttle + Fleet Officer + Twin Ion Engines.

The fleet officer is a support ship, it's purpose is to give out some much needed tokens to the main attack force. Since the Scimitar bombers in this list have no way to modify the dice besides the Guidance Chip, this adds another way to possibly make sure you get 3 hits going in and the stress,

So you could run:

4 x Scimitar Squadron Bombers + Extra Munitions + Flechette Torpedoes + Guidance

Scimitar Squadron Bomber + Tie Shuttle + Fleet Officer + Twin Ion Engine

Increasing the potential damage output of the fleet.

However even with this improvement, the bombers are still eventually going to loose in a untimed match, as the Flechette's just don't push enough damage through quick enough.

So what is a good base ordinance carrier. Do Gamma Squadron pilots work? They can but they run into the same problem as the Scimitars even though they get to shoot before some lower squadron pilots. They just don't push damage through fast enough.

Enter the Gamma Squadron Veterans that are coming in the Imperial Veterans pack. These generics come in at PS 5, and get the much needed EPT slot. Depending on your payloads and ordinance you carry, will help determine what you want to take as your EPT. There are a couple of suggestions:

• Deadeye
  
• Crackshot
  
• Predator
  
• Marksmanship
  

The Predator, Crackshot, and Marksmanship all give you a way to help push damage through. Crackshot is probably the one that is the most versatile. Predator is great for those situations where you are forced to spend your target lock to fire ordinance, it will give you the rerolls you need.

Marksmanship is an interesting one, that you may want to use if you plan to carry Advance Proton Torpedoes. In this particular case, you may want to have an Alpha Strike team of limited bombers that swap out Guidance Chip for Long Range Scanners. Making sure you get the needed target lock, so you can change use your action for Marksmanship.

Gamma Squadron Veteran + Marksmanship + Advanced Photon Torpedo + Long Range Scanners.

This guy is going to hit hard, your blanks will be turned into focus, which Marksmanship will allow you to turn into Hits. So you have a good possibility of a at minimum a 5 hit alpha strike hit against a target. Enough to help take out a lot of ships, and really put damage into other low agility ships. It is expensive, and the Long Range Scanners will limit it's usefulness long term.

The base build you'll see a lot for the Generics with EPT though will probably be this:

Gamma Squadron Veterans + Crackshot + Guidance Chips + <ordance of your choice> + <extra munitions>

Crackshot helps push that extra damage through that normally wouldn't have happened. Along with Guidance Chips, it can help make sure that at least 1 if not 2 damage get through, and if you are really lucky, against low agility ships, you can possibly squeeze three damage through.

The Tie Shuttle is going to be a fantastic support ship, and for the newer EPTs, you will probably want Jonus running that shuttle, while he is on the board you are getting re-rolls and the fleet officer is passing out the focus tokens. Yeah Jonus is usually priority number one, but you really can do some damage early while he is out there, as he has already passed out the focus tokens to the bombers actually doing the attacking.

It's going to be fun with Bombers... but unfortunately, the real fun doesn't happen until the Imperial Veterans expansion arrives. Until then, bombers are going to be annoying, but become deadly after that.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/201103-lets-see-your-post-wave-8-and-imp-aces-tie-bomber-builds/

I've found Homing Missiles work better than anything else. You need 4 dice to punch through defenses. Having the re-roll is fantastic for the missiles. Also helps when you can't use an Evade token on defense. If not Homing Missiles, then you need something with 4 dice. The cheapest is Plasma Torpedoes, but they have no way to alter the dice. 4 pts can get you either Proton Torpedo or Concussion Missile, which work well with Guidance Chip.

I'd rather have 4 Scimitars with Homing Missiles to 5 with Flechettes.

Both Guidance Chip and LRS are good for Tie Bombers. I'm leaning towards LRS on low generics.

5 x Scimitar + Concussion Missiles + Long Range Sensors

That's the one I like playing! haha.

the Chadwick bomber is my favorite loadout too

it's amazing how useful the seismic charges can be once you get used to them

the missiles are kickass too, but if all else fails and you're at range one even the primaries can kill aggressors

It was fun the other night loading Poe up with 4 stress, and blocking him onto a rock, and blasting him off the board in the second round of shooting. I'll have to try the 4 with Homing, extra munitions and seismic charges/ion bombs. I could have used them last night with the amount of stress I got from the K-Wings with tactician.

In all seriousness, with all the new modifications available to ordnance upcoming, does anyone see Ion Torpedoes making an impact? With plenty of modifications they can do nearly the same damage as regular torpedoes or missiles, but the range 1 Ion splash can just ruin a squad. Fel/Corran/Poe no longer can be anywhere near their allies. Range 1 support elements become huge liabilities. Bombs. Even against a single target, on a quality dedicated torpedo carrier (Horton with Guidance Chip, for example) the solid regular damage and a single ion token are still very effective. Combining Ion effects and high damage output in the same turn is pretty rare. Right now only TIE/D Defenders can do it, and they're not out.

Ion Pulses are better. Less costly, don't require the expenditure or the TL, provide 2 Ion Tokens.

Unless Poe is obstructed he's capped at 2 agility dice. With Chips and TL you have a great chance of punching through assuming Poe double evades.

Ion Pulses are better. Less costly, don't require the expenditure or the TL, provide 2 Ion Tokens.

Unless Poe is obstructed he's capped at 2 agility dice. With Chips and TL you have a great chance of punching through assuming Poe double evades.

1.) They're capped at 1 damage.

2.) They don't splash.

Different tool, still great.

Ion Pulses are better. Less costly, don't require the expenditure or the TL, provide 2 Ion Tokens.

Unless Poe is obstructed he's capped at 2 agility dice. With Chips and TL you have a great chance of punching through assuming Poe double evades.

1.) They're capped at 1 damage.

2.) They don't splash.

Different tool, still great.

2.) That's fine because it basically autoionizes Poes and fat turrets with Chips. If people are flying Ghosts you can detonate the bridge out from underneath them and stop the IHOP meta before it even begins with IPM's.

In all seriousness, with all the new modifications available to ordnance upcoming, does anyone see Ion Torpedoes making an impact? With plenty of modifications they can do nearly the same damage as regular torpedoes or missiles, but the range 1 Ion splash can just ruin a squad. Fel/Corran/Poe no longer can be anywhere near their allies. Range 1 support elements become huge liabilities. Bombs. Even against a single target, on a quality dedicated torpedo carrier (Horton with Guidance Chip, for example) the solid regular damage and a single ion token are still very effective. Combining Ion effects and high damage output in the same turn is pretty rare. Right now only TIE/D Defenders can do it, and they're not out.

Yes, I do see them making an impact. That's a lot of damage and control you can bring to the table and it works against many different types of lists. The fact that the splash ion means you can fire at a low agility target and hit all those around. TLT's and other ships are all over the place these days and it's not hard to find something you can hit in most list. Guidance Chip or LRS will help make it hit more, but you will have the problem of reliability (some).

The ability to do the damage AND splash the Ion is great. It's useful vs. so many lists. It works against Swarms, TLT's, mixed lists, and....everything except three Aces. Well, even then it might work, especially if going at the end of the round when tokens are spent. I can especially see not just hitting a swarm formation, but HALF a swarm formation. What does the other half do? It can't go 1 forward, so it has to break the formation up and be a real pain in the tail. If you are able to hit all the TLT's, then you know where they will be for a round and you can get within R1 of as many as possible. That's golden if you are trying to take out TLT's as fast as you can (and you should be). If you are able to hit a nearby ace then you are doing exceptionally well. You will know where they will be and can ambush them the same.

I think Ion Torpedo will be very effective in the hands of a clever opponent. They can be used on many different ships, as well. I mean, Wedge can take Guidance Chip and Ion Torpedo if you want to. THAT is worth doing if it means you can hit Soontir Fel with damage and Ion.

I'm excited to see munition squads out there. I'm not sure where the meta is going to go with them - do you make your list based around them, or do you just sprinkle one in? But something like this sure does sound painful.

Jonus w/ Shuttle, Wired, Fleet Officer

Scimitar w/ Proton Torps, Clusters, EM, LRS

Scimitar w/ Plasma, IPM, EM, LRS

Scimitar w/ Plasma, IPM, EM, LRS

Or something of the sort. The three Scimitars take the TL the first round, and then when they close to attack range, Jonus gives two of them a second focus with Fleet Officer. This way, they can use one of them (potentially two) in order to survive until they shoot at PS2. In the ideal world, the two with plasmas get the second Focus - and you launch those first to take out whatever shields the ship has, utilizing the rerolls and the focus token. Then the Proton torps get launched next with the rerolls and the eye->crit modification.

Alternatively, you can launch IPMs at the target - you get two chances to ionize him/her, setting up the nice Clusters for the next turn. That can help you maintain the TL when you close to R1-2. And all of this is flexible enough based upon the list your opponent brings. Fat ship - Plasmas and Protons make it go boom. Regen ship - Clusters make it go boom. Swarm - outlast with the 6 hull each. 4 middle of the road ships would probably be the hardest since you'd have to determine TLs properly based off of the damage done. And obviously you could change around the ordnance to best fit it for your style. Perhaps drop the clusters in order to put Seismics on two of them (it would make swarms easier for sure!).

And there's no clear #1 target. Jonus is going to have free rerolls on his eyes, presumably making him difficult to kill. Plus, like Howl, he should be in the back, meaning you're unlikely to be able to focus on him the first turn. And the three scimitars cover for each other well - if any one of them dies, it doesn't end the synergy that the rest of them have.

Heck, you might still be better off with only one ordnance each. Keeping 2 Plasmas and a Proton, that leaves you 10 points for other "stuff." You can easily spend that on Bombs. If you don't want to use your action for them, then 3 seismics leaves you with 4 points for another crew member on the Jonus Shuttle. Tactician, Jerjerrod, Vader, Mara, and Ysanne all come to mind as good options. Tactician makes him more dangerous, so perhaps he's not the best option. And I'm not too sure I want Vader on my reroll shuttle. Jerjerrod could potentially be the best option allowing you to eject up to two crits keeping Jonus alive all that much longer. Ysanne is an interesting choice, but doesn't couple well with FO. And then Mara is just kinda a big FU. Talking through all of this, I'd probably go with Jerry or Mara depending of if you want to be aggressive or defensive.

I don't see the benefit of Jonus. If you go with 4 generics and Homing Missiles, you end up better off than only 3 with Jonus as the weak link. Also, with LRS, you can most likely get the TL and Focus for the shot and don't need Fleet Officer.

I don't see the benefit of Jonus. If you go with 4 generics and Homing Missiles, you end up better off than only 3 with Jonus as the weak link. Also, with LRS, you can most likely get the TL and Focus for the shot and don't need Fleet Officer.

Well, the benefit of FO is that you have a token for defense. I know I personally have had numerous times in casual games where I've lined up the nice TL+F ordnance shot, only to have to spend my F prior to my attack in order to live to attack. Having a second focus allows you to defend yourself with those 3 dice (assuming R3). And having a focus token does nothing if you blank on the dice - thus the rerolls. Though you do have a point about HM. The better half of the HM is that you can keep the TL for the next turn (since you can't acquire it at R2) so you can shoot those clusters - but without Jonus and FO, they're not heavily modified.

I don't see the benefit of Jonus. If you go with 4 generics and Homing Missiles, you end up better off than only 3 with Jonus as the weak link. Also, with LRS, you can most likely get the TL and Focus for the shot and don't need Fleet Officer.

Well, the benefit of FO is that you have a token for defense. I know I personally have had numerous times in casual games where I've lined up the nice TL+F ordnance shot, only to have to spend my F prior to my attack in order to live to attack. Having a second focus allows you to defend yourself with those 3 dice (assuming R3). And having a focus token does nothing if you blank on the dice - thus the rerolls. Though you do have a point about HM. The better half of the HM is that you can keep the TL for the next turn (since you can't acquire it at R2) so you can shoot those clusters - but without Jonus and FO, they're not heavily modified.

I've used Jonus a lot and understand his limitations. For one, he is a weak point that when he dies, your ability to modify dice is gone. Jonus doesn't get to modify his own dice. The worst thing about Jonus is that you are forced to fly in formation, which is terrible vs. arc dodgers.

I think it's not a good strategy to save your TL for the next turn as you want your target to be dead in that round. If you kill your target, you don't need a TL on the same ship next round. You don't want to spread out your damage to different targets.

Homing Missiles let you modify all the dice, as opposed to just 2 dice. Not only does the Homing Missile let you re-roll as many dice as you want, it blocks the defender from using an Evade token. I find Homing Missiles superior to Jonus.

I've found I'd rather have a fourth Bomber with a Homing Missile firing that turn than have Jonus for re-rolls to give a secondary Focus to two Bombers. It amplifies the alpha strike that way. You are also not required to fly in a block and get flanked by arc dodgers or become predictable. You can fly more fluid and open ended.

Y'all doing it wrong.

Kidding,

Here's my current loadout:

Captain Jonus — TIE Bomber 22
XX-23 S-Thread Tracers 1
Ship Total: 23

Scimitar Squadron Pilot — TIE Bomber 16
Extra Munitions 2
Flechette Torpedoes 2
Cluster Missiles 4
Seismic Charges 2
Guidance Chips 0
Ship Total: 26

Scimitar Squadron Pilot — TIE Bomber 16
Extra Munitions 2
Flechette Torpedoes 2
Cluster Missiles 4
Seismic Charges 2
Guidance Chips 0
Ship Total: 26

Scimitar Squadron Pilot — TIE Bomber 16
Extra Munitions 2
Assault Missiles 5
Seismic Charges 2
Guidance Chips 0
Ship Total: 25

Scares just about anything, especially if that IPM hits in the first exchange.

By the way, you can also (due to guidance chips) fly Jonus as a "soft" flanker to set up target locks. As long as you're in R2 in the second combat phase (after the First Exchange).

I've done that in two games so far. Nobody expected that.

Bombers can be fast when they want to so its not that hard to get him back into the mix for some cluster-loving.

Wait. That didn't come out right.

I'm inclined to wait and see. Right now I don't have the urge to pump out 4 bombers with all the upgrades, even with proxies.

That being said it's going to be an interesting wait.

Took 2nd place twice at Store Champs with my 4-Bomber list last year and I feel that all the generic Bomber lists need is a way to deal with flankers/arc-dodgers.

Took 2nd place twice at Store Champs with my 4-Bomber list last year and I feel that all the generic Bomber lists need is a way to deal with flankers/arc-dodgers.

I took 3rd as I faced 3 generic Phantoms in the Final Four and lost.

The best way to deal with arc dodgers is to not fly in formation. That means no Jonus. Also, I noticed your list doesn't have any 4 dice ordnance. I find having 4 dice is needed to punch through some ships. I like the Flechette Torps to stress out someone like Soontir, but event he can be 4 green dice.

I think with flankers, it's more about deployment. I've usually gone in one corner, but I think I've changed my mind. I want to have at least one Asteroid in the middle and then try to get 2 in your back corners. I want to start in a line in the middle as I know they will deploy after me. Someone with flankers usually splits off one way and the rest go the other side. You can commit to go after the flanker. Once LRS comes out, it will be a lot easier to ensure you can get someone in arc. If someone like Soontir is on his own on one side and you go heavy for him, he's really just got to bugger backwards to get away. Take out Soontir first, and then go for the rest of the list.